Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy by Gregory S. Wilson (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy by Gregory S. Wilson
• Adam Tompkins

Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy. By Gregory S. Wilson. Environmental History and the American South. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023. Pp. xiv, 236. Paper, $32.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6348-6; cloth, $114.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6347-9.)

Gregory S. Wilson’s Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy chronicles the yearslong effort to determine the severity of harm and to minimize the threat to the environment and human health from the corporate malfeasance of Allied Chemical and Life Science Products in the manufacture of Kepone (chlordecone), a persistent organochlorine insecticide that was widely used in the cultivation of potatoes and bananas in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. Through extensive use of legal proceedings, government documents, oral histories, and other primary sources, Wilson makes clear the complicated process of identifying the reach of Kepone contamination, proving culpability, strengthening environmental management at state and federal levels, and creating an innovative solution in the form of the Virginia Environmental Endowment to improve environmental conditions within the state. Poison Powder is an engaging procedural that argues that the prompt action of regulatory agencies and the courts reduced, but did not wholly eliminate, the impacts of the Kepone disaster in Virginia. [End Page 659]

Wilson conducted over twenty oral history interviews, which he effectively uses to “remind us of the human dimension at the heart of the Kepone story” (p. xi). These interviews constitute a core strength of the book, showing how various constituencies—scientists, regulators, fisherfolk—considered partial evidence and scientific uncertainty when responding to the problem. The interviews also provide an opportunity for many of the key players to reflect on their thinking and decision-making in the past. Wilson marshals these voices into an engaging discussion of the precautionary principle, as evidenced in the decision to close the James River, and quantitative risk assessment, which underlay much of the argument to reopen the river to fishing.

Wilson makes regular reference to the various residues left by Kepone when discussing the lasting impact of the pesticide on place, politics, environment, and memory. Often the word residue carries a negative connotation, but that is not always the case here. Wilson, for example, argues that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act and much of Virginia’s state legislation relating to toxic substances bear the residue of Kepone. Such residues, in this manner, largely function as value-neutral connecting devices.

Chapters 1–6 primarily focus on the city of Hopewell, Virginia, where Kepone was manufactured, while chapter 7 introduces the French West Indies as “the only other documented experience with chlordecone” (p. 157). The introduction of this second case study serves to support the argument that the swift action of authorities to shut down the plant and close the James River forestalled longer lasting environmental impacts and human health consequences. Wilson addresses the issue of race when contrasting the response to Kepone/chlordecone contamination, asserting that the inadequate government response in the Caribbean “reflected a long history of racism and colonialism” (p. 6). He also speculates that there is no telling “how the story would have played out in Hopewell had” the demographics at the production plant been different (p. 69).

It is interesting to consider the silences outside of Hopewell. If Kepone was used on potato crops in the United States, it seems fair to assume that farm-workers may have suffered from pesticide exposure. Yet no health studies of migrant farmworkers in the United States are evident here. Knowing the challenges that farmworkers faced when agitating for pesticide reform, it seems very possible that regulators did not follow the residues of Kepone into the fields where migrants labored. This, if true, would further support Wilson’s speculation about race and class.

Adam Tompkins Lakeland University–Japan Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...